


In These Lines From Time to Time

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Stealth Crossover, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:30:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the marriages/weddings comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, exactly how binding are those offworld marriage ceremonies?" and the story_works Surprise challenge.“Telepathy,” Evan said.Nealson stared at him.Evan added, “Surprise.”Evan and Nealson get married offworld. Complications ensue. Nealson has been through hell. Evan tumbles after him. Nealson pulls him back out.





	In These Lines From Time to Time

**Author's Note:**

> Includes dialogue from Ep 6x06 of SG-1 (Abyss).

Evan awoke sharply, heart pounding. His head still echoed with images of the prison, of men with rough hands speaking in a garbled mix of Kurdish and Arabic. He’d been through a lot of hell in the Stargate program, but that was worse. Their hands on him. Their mouths on him. The knives and cigarettes and needles -

Where the  _ hell _ had that come from?

He rolled up to a sitting position, scrubbed a hand over his face. His hairline was damp with sweat, but he was shivering. This was the third awful nightmare he’d had in a row. The first one had been a terror of being tortured to death, resurrected, and tortured to death again. Acid. Knives. A Goa’uld hand device. Beatings and beatings and beatings. The second one had been - heartbreaking. His son’s death with his own gun. Over and over and over again.

Except Evan had never had a son, and he’d never been kidnapped and tortured by a Goa’uld, and he’d never been kidnapped Earthside either.

Evan heaved himself to his feet, dragged on a pair of running shorts, socks, and shoes, and headed out of his quarters into the hallway. A run. That would clear his head. He wasn’t built like a typical runner, was stocky and broad through the shoulders, and he wasn’t particularly fast, but he was a workhorse, could plod along forever. 

Evan stretched out briefly, then hit the ground running. He could make an informal patrol while he was at it, see how Major Dorsey was doing commanding Third Shift. Evan had been running for years, even before he’d joined the Air Force. It was meditative, the harmony of body and breath, the clarity of mind. He definitely wanted to clear his head from the last shards of horror that his mind had somehow, some way conjured up.

He was just rounding the corner out of the military quarters atrium when Lieutenant Nealson stepped out of his quarters, also wearing running shorts and a tank top and sneakers. He inclined his head politely at Evan and set to running as well. He was barely eighteen years old, still narrow in the shoulders, was lean like so many Special Ops guys Evan had known, built to move fast.

Even though Nealson could have easily outpaced Evan, he fell into step with Evan, and they ran together, side by side, not looking at each other, just...moving. Like a team.

Nealson had been sent to Atlantis on what people were calling Wave 3.5, when the Expedition was returned to Atlantis after the debacle that was the return of Helia and the Ancients and their subsequent crushing defeat by the Asurans, whose asses were thoroughly kicked by AR-1 plus O’Neill and (bafflingly) Richard Woolsey. By all accounts Nealson was some kind of prodigy, had pretty much been waved through the Academy and was considered on par with at least a masters-level aeronautical engineer, but McKay complained that all Nealson did was hang around the labs playing with a yoyo and turning things on. 

Nealson was the Walking Gene so Sheppard, Beckett, and Evan weren’t always being summoned into the lab to try to initiate the newest Ancient toy someone had dug up offworld or on a city exploration mission. As much as Evan appreciated having a bit more free time to handle his duties, he felt bad for Nealson being stuck in the lab all the time, so on his most recent mission through the gate, a trading run recommended by Teyla, he’d invited Nealson along. He was gate-rated but had essentially no gate experience. Half of the fun of the SGC was going offworld, so Evan wanted him to have the chance to have some fun.

But they’d stepped through the gate and Nealson had drawled, “Oh look. Trees.”

For all that he was unimpressed with going offworld, he was less squeamish than the rest of Evan’s team about entering into an alien marriage ceremony for trading purposes. When the Chieftain had led them to the Holy Pedestal (read: display case with a mostly-empty but still useful ZPM inside), Coughlin and Reed and Billick had balked, but Nealson had stepped up, pressed his hand to the pedestal opposite Evan, and dutifully repeated the ritual words.

Nealson was kind of an enigma, being bored by trees but unfazed by alien marriage. But he’d done well offworld, accompanied Evan to the anthropology lab to report the “marriage” to the scientists there, even gave a detailed recounting of the ceremony and the ritual language. Then he’d nodded to Evan and departed, ostensibly back to the engineering lab where McKay had been raging about his absence.

Nealson was the only member of the military who wasn’t on a gate team. Even though he’d only been on Atlantis a month, Evan was surprised he hadn’t gone insane, hadn’t made a break for the jumper bay and taken off for one of the beach planets.

He was a pleasant running companion, at least. Quiet. Steady.

They’d made it about halfway through Evan’s regular lap when Evan went to make a turn toward some of the inner regions of the city instead of the exterior balcony runs.

“You usually go the other way,” Nealson said, but he kept pace with Evan.

“Yeah, but - midnight patrol, as it were. Surprise Dorsey.”

“Ah.” Nealson’s tone was knowing. As if he’d done surprise inspections on subordinates before.

Nealson knew Evan’s regular running route, which wasn’t too big a surprise. Evan ran at the same time every day, and Nealson had proved he was observant. It was still a bit strange, as Evan had never seen Nealson go running.

“This your usual run time?” Evan asked.

“Ah, no. Just letting off some steam.”

Evan nodded. He could only imagine. Nealson was younger than even the youngest Marines by about five years, was in his own niche, was a little isolated. Couldn’t really date anyone. Everyone who looked at him thought he was still a kid. Which he was.

Not a bad-looking kid - bright dark eyes, neat dark hair, even features, bright smile when he wasn’t being all snarky.

Not that Evan looked that hard at his male colleagues. He was an artist. He, too, was observant, in his own way.

“Me too.”

Nealson kept on running. “Just needed to get Charlie out of my head.”

That made no sense. “Who’s Charlie?”

“What?” Nealson’s stride faltered, and he stumbled.

Evan slowed. “Who’s Charlie?”

“Who told you that name?” Nealson’s gaze was dark with fury and something else.

Evan immediately bristled at a subordinate taking that tone with him, but he took a deep breath. “I don’t know. You just said you needed to get Charlie out of your head.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Nealson snapped, and then added a tight, “sir.”

“Yes, you did. I just heard you.”

“No, I didn’t.”

And then Evan heard Nealson say, clear as a bell, 

“No one here knows about Charlie. Most people on Earth don’t even know his name.”

Only his lips never moved.

Evan said, “We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem? Sir.”

Evan said, “To the infirmary. Now.”

And Nealson said, with surprising placidness, “Yes, sir.”

*

“He’s sleepwalking,” Carson said, waving an Ancient handheld medical scanner over Nealson’s head.

Nealson was sitting on one of the exam tables, submitting to a brief physical.

“What?” Evan peered at Nealson. He’d sleepwalked as a kid but hadn’t done it since he was about ten. He knew people who were sleepwalking could execute complex tasks and have lucid-sounding conversations.

“He’s technically unconscious.” Carson stared at the readout on the scanner, perplexed.

Evan sat on the exam table beside Nealson’s, having also submitted to the Ancient scanner. “That’s not why I brought him here. I’m pretty sure I just read his mind.”

Carson looked at him sharply. “Read his mind?”

Evan cast about, found a pen and paper. “Ask him a question about - about Charlie.”

Carson looked dubious, but he complied. He turned to Nealson. “Who’s Charlie? Don’t answer aloud.”

Evan heard Nealson’s voice in his own head. “My son.”

Evan wrote that down on the paper, turned it around for Carson to see.

Carson looked taken aback. “I didn’t think he had a - not that he’s not old enough to -” He turned to Nealson. “Lad, is Charlie your son?”

“Was,” Nealson said aloud. “Was my son.”

Evan remembered his nightmares. “Did Charlie accidentally kill himself? With your sidearm.”

Nealson crumpled and began to weep.

Carson said, “I’m calling Kate.” And he radioed for Dr. Heightmeyer.

“Doc,” Evan said. “You saw, though. I read his mind.”

Carson’s expression was grim. “Aye. I’ll call senior command.”

*

Heightmeyer arrived quickly, hair mussed from sleep. Evan held his tongue while Carson explained the situation. Nealson was curled up in a ball on the cot, face buried in his hands, shuddering with sobs.

“The best thing to do is send him back to bed without waking him,” Heightmeyer said. “Then we can deal with this in the morning.”

Carson fretted. “How do we get him back to bed without touching him? He’s quite upset.”

_ Quite upset _ was a damn understatement. So Evan’s nightmares the past three nights were Nealson’s memories. The kid had been through hell and back multiple times. Evan had glimpsed but three nights’ worth and he felt like he’d been put through the wringer. Was that why Nealson was so nonchalant about going offworld and getting alien married? Because he was numb inside, after all he’d been through. And then Evan realized.

His nightmares had started three nights ago.

After they’d gotten “married” offworld.

Sheppard, McKay, and Weir arrived next, McKay looking like he’d fallen asleep in his uniform for how wrinkled it was, Weir perfectly turned out, and Sheppard with his uniform shirt partially mis-buttoned.

“What’s the big emergency?” McKay asked. “I was -” he yawned - “in the middle of -” he yawned again - “an important experiment.”

Evan said, “When Nealson and I got married offworld, I think it gave us a psychic connection.”

Sheppard stared at him.  _ “What?” _

“For the past three nights, I’ve been having nightmares - that are Nealson’s memories,” Evan said. “Tonight he went sleepwalking. I haven’t sleepwalked since I was ten, but I know stress can trigger it again, and if his dreams are any indication, he’s pretty stressed out.”

“You got married offworld, Major?” Sheppard asked, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.

McKay rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Like we’ve never gotten married offworld. Granted, when we did it, there was never any surprise telepathy.”

“Surprise telepathy,” Weir echoed, staring at Nealson in obvious discomfort.

“Is that going to be a thing now?” Sheppard asked Carson. “Surprise telepathy?”

“I’d prefer it over commonplace telepathy,” Carson said. “Two consciousnesses were never meant to inhabit one body. Remember when Lieutenant Cadman was inside of McKay -”

“I thought we agreed never to speak of that again,” McKay said loudly, a dull blush creeping up his cheeks.

“I need to run tests on both of you,” Carson said apologetically to Evan.

Nealson was still crying.

Evan remembered the sheer heartbreak from his nightmare, that single gunshot, shouting Charlie’s name, and the deafening silence that followed.

“In the morning,” Evan said. “C’mon, Lieutenant, time to go back to bed.” His mother, grandmother, and sister had described for him many times the process they’d gone through for getting him back to bed. Gentle tones, minimal contact, herding and guiding the sleepwalker back to their own bed. He reached for Nealson, patted his shoulder tentatively. 

Nealson lashed out.

One moment he was crying, the next he was slamming Evan to the floor.

Evan landed on his head, saw stars. All the air rushed out of his lungs. Nealson was on top of him, one hand on his throat, squeezing.

“Lieutenant!” Sheppard shouted. “Stand down!”

“Nealson!” McKay cried, alarmed.

“Jon,” Heightmeyer said, “Jon, please calm down.”

It was Weir who said, sharply, “Colonel!”

And then Evan could breathe again, could see again. Nealson stumbled to his feet, horrified. 

“What’s going on? Where the hell am I?”

“Lieutenant Nealson,” Weir said, enunciating his name very pointedly, “you’re in the infirmary on Atlantis.”

Nealson scrubbed a hand over his face. “Atlantis. Right.” He was breathing hard. “Major Lorne…?”

Evan pushed himself up to a sitting position. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

“Shit. I’m so sorry.”

“Having been woken from a sleepwalking episode and then reacting badly, I understand it wasn’t your fault.” Evan heaved himself to his feet, then climbed back onto the exam cot so Carson could look at him again.

Nealson frowned at the dampness on his hand, confused, rubbed his face again, frowned. “I don’t sleepwalk.”

“Well, I do.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Telepathy,” Evan said.

Nealson stared at him.

Evan added, “Surprise.”

*

Evan, McKay, Sheppard, Weir, Nealson, Teyla, Ronon, Heightmeyer, and Carson were all locked in Carson’s office at the back of the infirmary. It was almost sun-up, all of them were yawning, and they’d gone through two pots of coffee.

“So let me get this straight,” Sheppard said. “You two got married offworld, and now you can read each other’s minds.”

“They came into physical contact with an Ancient device during the ceremony.” McKay had pulled up both Evan and Nealson’s AARs and the supplemental report from Anthropology. “I’ll need to go to the planet and take readings.”

Sheppard eyed Evan. “But you didn’t feel anything?”

“No, sir,” Evan said, for the thousandth time. “Best as I could tell, it was a display case with a mostly-empty ZPM in it. There was no zap or sting or tingle, and there wasn’t any Ancient tech.”

“Obviously there was,” Weir said. “Because - telepathy.”

Carson had run a full work-up of Evan and Nealson - blood draws, temperature, blood pressure, multiple scans with different Ancient devices - and so far nothing was abnormal, other than that Evan had a nasty lump on his head and bruises on his throat. Carson and McKay had also run a whole battery of tests on Evan and Nealson to determine just how the telepathy worked. Best as they could tell, Evan and Nealson were connected to each other and no one else, distance was apparently no object - they’d been sent to opposite sides of the city - and they could sense each other’s passive thoughts with some effort but could send each other thoughts as easy as speaking them aloud. Evan and Nealson couldn’t see through each other’s eyes (though maybe that would come later, McKay posited, and Evan didn’t like the sound of that), but they could share physical sensations, mostly extremes like hot or cold.

Nealson had said almost nothing during most of the discussion, sat ramrod straight in his chair, hands on his knees, only speaking when spoken to. He was the very model of military protocol, and it was painful to watch.

Evan wanted to radio Zelenka and ask him to bring Nealson’s yoyo.

He also wanted to ask why Weir calling him  _ Colonel _ had woken him up when everyone else yelling his name hadn’t.

“I mean I didn’t feel any,” Evan said.

Weir frowned.

Evan gestured vaguely. “When there’s Ancient tech around, we can feel it, so we can reach out and use it.”

McKay raised his eyebrows. “Since when?”

“Since...always?” Evan glanced at Sheppard, but he avoided McKay’s gaze.

Nealson’s expression was still unreadable.

“I have never heard of any similar occurrences,” Teyla said. “And my people have traded with the Enkidans many times.”

“None of your people have the Gene, though, do they?” Carson asked.

Teyla inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Not that we are aware of so far.”

“What about you, Ronon?” Weir asked. “You’ve been to many worlds.”

He shrugged. “Only heard about it in legends. Thought it was just a myth.”

“Tell us,” Weir said. “Myths can contain truth.”

McKay snorted but said nothing.

“Atlantis,” Sheppard said, and McKay rolled his eyes.

“Fine, Ronon, tell us your fairytale.”

Ronon nodded, cleared his throat - and began to recite in a lyrical, almost sing-song fashion, something that probably rhymed in his language but sounded like poetry through the gate translation system anyway, a story of two lovers whose souls were knit together, so they were unstoppable in battle, were one almost god-like soldier in two bodies, but when they were finally defeated, they died together hand-in-hand.

“That was lovely,” Teyla said, when he finished.

Sheppard stared at him. “You memorized that whole thing?”

Ronon shrugged. “For school.”

McKay stared at him. “You went to school.”

“We had schools on Sateda.” Ronon’s expression was dangerously patient.

Weir looked at Nealson. “Exactly how binding  _ are _ those offworld ceremonies? I understand they occurred as often as they did at the SGC because the SGC didn’t hold them as binding.”

“The SGC didn’t, last I checked,” Nealson said. “Never heard of anything like this happening before. I mean - people with multiple entities in their heads, sure. But not as a result of an offworld trade wedding.”

“We’ve seen what happens when too many consciousnesses are in one body,” Carson said. “We need to fix this as soon as possible.”

Sheppard drained his coffee mug, winced. “To the planet to take readings, then?”

McKay was already on his feet.

“Permission to accompany you, sir,” Nealson said.

Sheppard shook his head. “Denied, Lieutenant. You and Major Lorne are both being stood down till this is solved. Your ability to function in the field is compromised.”

Evan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Heightmeyer had been silent ever since they’d convened in Carson’s office after the tests finished. She straightened up, cleared her throat. “To minimize further disruption in your lives, you two should be on the same shift so you’re not inadvertently keeping each other up at night.”

Evan glanced at Sheppard, who nodded his agreement.

“And if either of you experience stress, feel free to come talk to me - either together or separately.”

“Can we ever really be separate?” Nealson asked.

“Perhaps I can be of some assistance,” Teyla said.

Nealson slewed her a look. “You’ve had surprise telepathy before?”

Teyla said, “Yes.”

McKay looked blank for a second. Then he snapped his fingers as the memory resurfaced. “Right. Your Wraith spidey sense. You can block outside thoughts. Teach them how. Fast. Because I want to get back to that planet as soon as possible.”

He swept out of the office, Sheppard on his heels.

Weir called after them, “Whatever you do, don’t touch that device! Take some non-carriers with you!”

There was a muffled response in the affirmative.

“Both of you should sleep,” Carson said. “In fact, take the next twenty-eight hours off. Doctor’s orders.”

Teyla nodded her agreement. “We will work on the task of maintaining your privacy after you have rested.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Evan pushed himself to his feet. He headed out of the infirmary and straight to the nearest transporter.

Nealson caught up to him just before the transporter doors slid shut.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Evan glanced at him. “You mean -”

“In my mind. What did you see?”

“Nightmares. Torture. In - Afghanistan? Iraq?”

Nealson didn’t clarify.

“Torture by a Goa’uld.”

Nealson’s gaze turned flinty.

“The death of your son.” Evan didn’t dare say his name aloud, not after the way Nealson had broken down in the infirmary.

Nealson’s entire body went rigid. Then his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “I haven’t seen anything from your mind yet. At least, not that I know of.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is worse than that damned Urgo.”

Evan had no idea what that meant but wasn’t going to ask.

Nealson lifted his head. “I’ll stay out of your head if you stay out of mine.”

Evan nodded. He hadn’t been through hell like Nealson had, but he had secrets of his own.

He made it back to his quarters, radioed to tell his team he was on stand down after a bit of a medical mishap, and that they were to report to Major Teldy for instruction. Then he stripped out of his running gear and fell back into bed.

*

_ He was past his breaking point. His breaking point was several life-and-death cycles ago. _

_ There was a man in the terrible gravity-rotating cell with him. Not just any man. The love of his life, dead and gone, come back to haunt him, taunt him with the memory of someone else he’d loved and failed.  _

_ “Come on, Jack. You think the Asgard named a ship after you because they thought it was a cool name? Now’s not the time to play dumb. You’re a lot smarter than that. They saw our potential in you, because of who you are and what you’ve done. Humanity’s potential. That’s the same thing Oma saw in me.” _

_ Daniel wasn’t wearing glasses. In his new, perfect state he didn’t need them. _

_ “I am not you.” _

_ The frustrated expression on Daniel’s face was familiar, beloved, missed. “Yeah, when has that ever stopped you from doing anything?” But he was too tired and desperate to take any amusement in the way Daniel’s brow was furrowed, his lips were pursed. “Okay. Put yourself in my shoes and me in yours.” _

_ “You’d be here for me.” Daniel was always freer about admitting when he was wrong, egotistical academic though he was. _

_ “Damn straight. I’d have busted you out, blown this rat hole to hell and made sure that sonofabitch suffered.” _

_ Daniel looked heartbroken. “You’re a better man than that.” _

_ He didn’t have the energy to try to ameliorate that kind of pain. “That’s where you're wrong!” _

_ “ _ _ This is not your life we’re talking about, Jack! This is your soul! This is it! What I’m offering you is your only way out.” _

_ He shook his head. “You’re wrong about that too. I have another choice.” _

_ Daniel closed his eyes, sighed, then opened them. _ _ “What are you talking about?”  _

_ He wasn’t going to say it aloud. It was bad enough that he was despairing enough to consider the option. _

_ Daniel shook his head. “No.” _

_ He straightened up, prowled closer to Daniel, Daniel who he could see and hear but not touch, not hold or kiss or strangle because he was so damn infuriating. Daniel, who might or might not have been there, was the last gasp of a desperate mind. “Any minute, they’re going to come. Ba’al is going to kill me again. You can make it the last time.” _

_ Daniel pushed away from the wall, started to pace the cell, shaking his head, hugging himself tightly. “Don’t ask me to do that.” _

_ “You can put an end to it.” _

_ “I won’t do it.” _

_ That nightmarish hum filled the room. Gravity would be turning again. _

_ “I’d do it for you, and you know it.” He went to meet his fate. “I don’t want to see this cell again, Daniel.” _

*

Evan woke so terrified he could hardly breathe. He stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom and retched violently, sobbing. He slumped against the toilet bowl, hiccuping and panting and trying to calm his racing heart, but he couldn’t do it, not again, couldn’t die again, couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t  -

The door to his quarters hissed open.

“Major!” Nealson was at his side in an instant. “You look like hell. Do we need to get you back to Doc Beckett?”

Evan peered through his wet lashes at Nealson, who was kneeling beside him, pale, exhausted, with shadows around his eyes, but remarkably calm. “Who  _ are _ you?”

“That’s classified.”

Evan could believe it. In all his years at the SGC, he’d never heard of anything this horrible happening to any of its personnel, and the SGC was a gossipy bunch.

Then Evan realized. “What are you doing in my quarters?”

“You were upset,” Nealson said, and made a face once he realized what that meant.

Evan sighed and rested his forehead against the cool metal of the toilet bowl.

Nealson said, “Let’s go talk to Teyla.” He rose, offered Evan a hand.

Evan accepted it, stood shakily. “Let me rinse my mouth out.”

“And brush your teeth.” Nealson managed to make his tone light.

“We should both shower up. I’ll meet you in fifteen.”

Nealson looked confused for a moment, then said, “Yes, sir.” He ducked out of Evan’s quarters.

Evan showered with the water as hot as he could stand it, as if he could burn the memories of the dream away. Then he brushed his teeth, shaved, combed his hair, pulled on his uniform. Getting dressed was putting on armor to face the day.

When he stepped out of his quarters fifteen minutes later, he was the picture of a modern model Air Force Major. Nealson joined him, also perfectly turned out in uniform.

“Have you had breakfast?” Evan asked.

Nealson shook his head. 

“Then let’s get some food. Don’t want to be telepathic on an empty stomach.”

*

Evan couldn’t hear any of Nealson’s thoughts, because all the way to the mess hall and all the way through breakfast, he was thinking of the theme song from the Simpsons. And just the theme song. Over and over and over again. His focus and determination was admirable, but Evan had never been particularly fond of the Simpsons, and by the end of breakfast, he was pretty sure he was going mildly insane.

Finally, he set down his fork. “Lieutenant,” he said, “I appreciate your efforts at maintaining - security. But perhaps you could pick a different song.”

Nealson flicked a glance at him that was all unimpressed amusement, and abruptly switched songs.

To opera.

Evan didn’t know a lot about opera, but Nealson seemed to. The music in his head sounded like recordings Evan had heard, the singer’s voice strong and soaring and clear. No fumbling the foreign languages other. Evan had never really listened to opera before, because no one in his family had been interested in it, but it wasn’t bad. Interestingly, the opera in Nealson’s head had no background music. He wasn’t reliving listening to any opera songs.

Evan peered at him. “Do you sing opera?”

There was a break in the music. Nealson met his gaze. Shrugged. “Sometimes.”

Did he sound aloud like he did in his head, though?

The music resumed. 

In order to maintain his share of the burden, Evan started listing paint pigments in his head. 

They managed to finish breakfast in mutual tolerance. Evan rose, tapped his radio, asked Chuck for a twenty on Teyla. She was in one of the training halls doing one of her morning bantos workouts.

“Teyla?” Nealson asked.

“This way,” Evan said, and led the way to the nearest transporter.

The training halls were mostly empty, save a few people in a yoga class led by Dr. Ambrose and Teyla on the mats, doing a deadly dance with her bantos rods. There was a similar martial art on Earth, escrima, that involved fighting with a pair of short sticks. The beautiful thing about escrima was that it was useful with a pair of knives or even bare-handed. Evan had learned some of the basics from a high school classmate of his, a tiny Filipino boy, but given his family’s pacifist ways, he’d never been allowed to do more than dabble in martial arts till he left home and joined the Air Force.

Nealson paused beside Evan, watching, gaze admiring without being  _ too _ admiring, like some of the other men were (until the first time they faced Teyla on the mats and got their egos handed to them).

Teyla finished her form, centered herself, then lifted her head and smiled.

“Major Lorne, Lieutenant Nealson, it is good to see you. Are you ready to work?”

Evan nodded.

Teyla gathered up her training gear, and they followed her back to her quarters, which were much larger than pretty much anything in the military living section, but then she was part of senior command. Her quarters were decorated with Athosian touches - an animal skin rug, her own soft blue bedspread, some handmade wooden decorations, and candles. Lots and lots of candles.

“Please, have a seat. We will need to relax. How have you been doing so far?”

“So far I’ve been singing in my head and Lorne’s been reciting colors. It’s been - educational,” Nealson drawled. He sat cross-legged on one of the fur skin rugs.

“Dr. Ambrose tells me that people on Earth practice various forms of meditation,” Teyla said. “Are you familiar with any of them?”

“Only theoretically,” Nealson said.

“I learned some basic Buddhist meditation when I was younger, but I never stuck with it,” Evan said. He sat down as well, settled himself in, arranged his posture the way he’d always been taught  _ (root through your seat, grow tall through your crown). _

Teyla lit some candles, then sat cross-legged on the floor with them so they formed a little circle. Her instructions were familiar to Evan, about breathing deeply, softening his gaze, relaxing as best as he could, then closing his eyes. The familiarity of her instructions were soothing: checking in head to toe, noting sensations but not dwelling on them, then focusing on each breath in and out.

“Now,” Teyla said, “what do you hear? From each other.”

Evan reached out to the murmur at the back of his mind, grumblings about  _ kel-no-reem _ and  _ candlelight-fire-meal,  _ and Nealson’s mind flooded his.

He came to a moment later with Teyla kneeling over him, shaking his shoulder and shouting. She was shaking Nealson too.

Nealson groaned, rolled onto his side, heaved himself up. “I think that was the exact opposite of what we wanted. We’re not supposed to be emptying our minds; we need shields of some sort. To keep each other out. I can’t sing forever, and Lorne’s going to run out of colors.”

Teyla sat back on her haunches, breathing hard. “Lieutenant Nealson, Major Lorne, are you all right?”

“Uh, no,” Evan said, as politely as he could muster. He levered himself up on his forearms, shaky and light-headed.

Teyla sighed. “Perhaps I cannot assist you after all.”

Nealson managed to crawl himself into a sitting position. “You know who might be useful? Dr. Schwarz. He’s a neuroscientist.”

*

Dr. Schwarz, Evan knew, was from Germany. He was working on possibilities to convert neural interfaces into hardware interfaces so people without the Gene could access important pieces of technology. So far all he’d done was take endless scans of Gene-carriers while they activated endless tech, Evan and Nealson included.

He had long, wild red hair that he barely kept tame with a hideous yellow bandana, always had a pair of red-lensed sunglasses on hand, and was in an unspoken contest with Sheppard for who could slouch the most.

He was slumped down in his chair at his desk in the lab, reviewing MRI results, when Evan, and Nealson approached.

“So,” he drawled, his English carefully unaccented, “come to the expert for help with matters of the mind?”

“Wouldn’t that be Heightmeyer?” Nealson asked.

“No. She deals with - psyches. Souls.” Schwarz turned himself around with his long, long legs, smiled lazily up at them. He had wickedly-tilted green eyes, like a cat’s. “I deal with the mind. Surprise telepathy after interaction with an Ancient artifact during an offworld ceremony is totally up my alley.”

Nealson was distinctly unamused at Schwarz’s casual pronouncement about their predicament. 

“It’s all over the labs.” Schwarz sat up straighter, pulled his keyboard onto his lap. A new word processing document opened on the screen behind him. “Tell me all about it. Have either of you been married before?”

“I’m sure it’s all in everyone else’s reports,” Evan said.

Nealson said, “Once.”

Schwarz raised his eyebrows. “Really? Is that even legal in America?”

“Can you help us or not?” Nealson snapped. “Because if you want me to be useful here and if you want Lorne to keep making sure we get coffee, we need this fixed, and we need it fixed pronto.”

At  _ coffee,  _ Schwarz narrowed his eyes at Evan, gaze speculative. “All right.” He set his keyboard aside, cracked his knuckles, stretched. “Luckily for you, Teyla is still helpful. Learning to meditate is half the battle. However, instead of clearing your minds, you need to visualize shields.”

“Shields? Plural?” Evan asked.

“Yes, shields. Core shields, to protect your innermost self from everyone and everything. A veritable Fort Knox, or so they say. Your inner shields, like maille armor, so you can hear others without them hearing you. And then your outermost shields, like a gauzy curtain, so you can speak to others.” Dr. Schwarz sounded perfectly serious and perfectly reasonable but for how insane his words were.

“Others,” Nealson said slowly. “The only person I can hear is Lorne. I’d rather not suddenly start hearing other people as well.”

“Of course. Hearing more than just each other would be impossible,” Schwarz said smoothly. Too smoothly. He tapped his radio. “Can I get a location on Teyla? I need her assistance.”

Once Teyla arrived, Schwarz drew her into a low conversation as he led Evan and Nealson out of the lab and to one of the common rooms. As soon as all four of them were inside, Schwarz flicked a wrist and the door slid shut, then the lights dimmed. So he was a Gene carrier. 

Teyla set several of her pleasantly-scented candles around the room, lit them, and once again everyone was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle. Evan felt like he was in kindergarten all over again. It was Teyla who walked them through the early stages of meditation, but once they got to the part where Evan would usually set to counting his breaths, Schwarz took over.

“Envision the strongest substance you know - steel, stone, diamond, titanium, naquadah, whatever.”

Evan couldn’t help but pick naquadah after those years he’d spent at that naquadah mine.

“Now with each breath in, out, in, out, imagine a brick of that substance being laid down.”

Evan was an artist. He could visualize things very well.

“Lay those bricks out in a ring around  _ you, _ everything you are, your name, your sense of your own body, your memories, your desires, your needs.”

Nealson’s breath hitched.

“No, stay relaxed,” Schwarz said.

“Easier said than done, Doc.”

“You need core shields around  _ you -” _

Nealson growled.

Evan opened his eyes, saw Nealson push himself to his feet.

“What is the matter, Lieutenant?” Teyla asked, rising to her feet as well, graceful as a dancer.

Nealson was pacing back and forth. “None of you have clearance to know that.”

Schwarz frowned, stood slowly. “Clearance?”

Nealson tossed his head. “Whatever. Just - I get it. Build a wall, maintain a wall. We need to maintain that wall as easy as breathing. I’ll work on it.”

“Lieutenant,” Schwarz began.

“I said I’ll work on it.” Nealson’s gaze was steely.

Schwarz nodded, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right. Message received. What about you, Major? You understand what you need to do?”

Evan nodded. “Assuming what Nealson stated is correct, sure.”

“Yes, he was correct. Start with your core shields. When those are done, move on to your inner shields, then your outer shields.” Schwarz backed out of the room slowly.

Teyla followed, though she paused at the door. “If you require any further assistance, I am available.” She didn’t take her candles with her, but she did close the door.

“Lieutenant,” Evan said carefully, “do you need to speak to Dr. Heightmeyer?”

“Why would I want to talk to her?”

“Obviously you’re having some identity conflicts -”

“Because no one knows who I  _ am.” _

Weir does, Evan thought. “Maybe talk to Dr. Weir.”

Nealson swiped a hand over his face. Then he peered through his fingers at Evan. “You’ve seen into my mind. Do you know? Have you figured it out?”

Evan knew Nealson had had a son (and apparently had been married once), had been through hell on at least three separate occasions. That though he’d been married to a woman and had a child, the love of his life had been someone named Daniel.

He shook his head. “No. And - however mutually invasive our situation is, you deserve as much privacy as possible, so I haven’t tried to figure out who you are. That would be prying.”

“Yeah,” Nealson said, sounding hollow. “Prying.” Then he let his hand fall to his side, straightened up. “Do you know what I’ve figured out about you?”

Evan shook his head, wary. “Other than that I used to sleepwalk as a kid?”

Nealson prowled closer to him. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”

Evan frowned. “Except I have the Gene and also the appropriate rank, experience, and seniority in grade as compared to my peers.”

“I mean in the Air Force. You had a beautiful childhood - sun, sand, surfing, loving mother, affectionate sister, doting grandmother.”

Evan raised his eyebrows.

“Well,” Nealson amended, “doting for her.”

Evan couldn’t help but recoil, because just how much of his mind had Nealson seen, that he knew how blunt and acerbic Nan could be?

Nealson prowled closer a step. “Not a nice feeling, is it? Knowing someone else is privy to those parts of you.” His smile was dark, dangerous, and for a moment Evan was afraid of him. He continued, his voice low and calm and sharp as a knife. “Why are you in the Air Force, Evan Lorne? Why did you leave your happy family - world-class chef Nan, tattoo artist Tally, painter Mom just like you, veteran Father -” Nealon frowned, stopped. “Why do you have no memories of your father?” It was his turn to recoil a step.

Evan didn’t have to say it aloud. He saw the moment Nealson learned the answer for himself. 

Evan didn’t actually know how his father had killed himself, but the ways he’d imagined it ranged from suicide by cop to a gunshot to the head with a Vietnam-era military issue sidearm. 

Nealson opened his mouth to say something, anything, but what was there to say? 

Finally he said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Evan smiled gently and said, “I know.”

Evan had had this conversation a thousand times since his twelfth birthday, the day he discovered the truth about his father. He’d had it with his grandmother, mother, sister, every base psych at every duty station. Compared to what Nealson had been through, his life had been idyllic.

“Good luck with those shields, Major,” Nealson said. He turned and left the   
room. 

Evan blew out the candles and gathered them up to return them to Teyla. He had work  to do.

*

The preliminary report from AR-1 was that the Enkidans had never experienced such a phenomenon in any of their marriages, but then none of them had the Gene. Based on what limited access AR-1 was granted to the marriage pedestal, it was pretty much inert. Apart from the limited radiation from the ZPM itself, it was just a pedestal.

“Which is what we told them,” Nealson muttered after McKay swept out of the lab, frustrated and looking for someone to unleash his frustration on. Zelenka was a likely and unfortunate candidate.

Sheppard slewed him a look, then addressed Evan. “How goes the whole telepathy thing? You guys all squared away, ready to wade back into battle?”

“It sounds like the long-term solution to our condition, absent some kind of cure, will take time, sir,” Evan said. “Dr. Schwarz and Teyla have given us guidance and training, but it’ll take time.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know, sir. We barely started today.”

Sheppard pressed his lips into a thin line. “Fine. I’ll temporarily redistribute your team.”

“Already sent them to Teldy for assignments, sir.”

“Of course you did. You have enough paperwork to keep you busy?”

Evan nodded. Sheppard glanced at Nealson.

“Nothing’s really going to change for you, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Nealson said, with suspiciously perfect deference. 

Sheppard nodded at Evan, then strode out of the lab.

Nealson watched him go, then turned to Kusanagi. “Now, what did you need initialized?”

It felt like a dismissal. Evan gritted his teeth, then left the lab. He did have a nasty backlog of paperwork. That would keep him busy. The sheer banality of it would be a shield against Nealson’s endless mental susurration of diamond bricks and opera music. 

Back in his office, Evan turned up his music. When Sheppard wasn’t around, Evan got a reprieve from the endless Johnny Cash. He could put on Joni Mitchell and turn her up and listen to her judgment-free. If he was processing requisitions, AARs, and endless supply reports, he needed something to keep him entertained, so he hummed along with each song and typed away.

_ They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. _

Nealson said, “You really  _ are _ a hippie.”

Evan lifted his head sharply, but Nealson wasn’t standing the doorway even though Evan had heard his voice loud and clear.

He responded, in his head but not out loud, “Well, I am a painter. I just don’t live in a box of paints.”

Nealson laughed.

His laughter was bright and sweet and free.

Evan had never heard him laugh before.

Nealson’s laughter cut off abruptly, and once more Evan was assailed by diamond bricks and the faint strains of  _ Pourquoi me reveiller. _

It was as if Evan had been in a warm embrace and then his partner suddenly pulled away, leaving him cold.

No, best not entertain thoughts like that.

Evan closed his eyes, forced himself to take several deep breaths, and summoned the walls of naquadah.

And the color of Jonathan Nealson’s eyes.

*

Schwarz’s eyes gleamed with amusement when Evan reported to him and Beckett about Nealson randomly intruding on his thoughts - and vice versa - but Beckett looked concerned, as did Sheppard and McKay and Weir. It was decided that Evan and Nealson should take their meditation lessons separately, their meals separately, and be stationed as far apart as possible while in the city, which meant that Nealson stayed in the labs and Evan was sent to the furthest habitable corner with his datapad to get his paperwork done.

McKay checked the Ancient database, but there was no record of spontaneous telepathic connections between two individuals (though telepathy was something the Ascended Ancients had achieved). Sheppard’s team went on several fact-gathering missions to planets suggested by Ronon, where tales and myths and legends of mind-melded lovers or warriors or siblings abounded, but they returned with nothing concrete, and after the whole disaster where McKay was nearly murdered by the Ancient machine that tried to force Ascension, there were bigger fish to fry.

After a month, Schwarz declared Evan and Jonathan’s core shields sufficient. They moved on to the next round of shields, and Evan was allowed to return to the command office from his necessary exile.

Evan was pretty sure he and Jonathan (Nealson, but it was hard to think of him like that when he didn’t think of himself like that) were still sharing dreams, but he never remembered them clearly in the mornings, just had vague impressions of the overall emotional tone of the dreams. Jonathan didn’t have any further sleepwalking incidents, so the core shields must have been working.

The next set of shields came faster, in about two weeks, and the final shields were simple after that, came in a few days.

Even though Evan and Jonathan were allowed to attend meals at the same times, be in the same rooms, they avoided each other. Evan was chomping at the bit to be released from his grounding, to be able to get back to his team and through the gate. He didn’t know how Jonathan did it, cooped up on Atlantis like he was.

Evan was in the gym doing his daily round of weights (leg day today, oh joy) when McKay raised him on the radio.

“Did you feel that?”

Evan lowered the weights, sat up straight. “Go again, McKay?”

“Right. Radio protocol. Whatever. Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“That answers that.”

And McKay went silent.

He didn’t answer Evan’s repeated hails. Evan was confused and also worried. Had he missed something important? Was he in trouble? Was something wrong?

And then he was drenched in a bucket of ice water.

Evan reacted the only way he knew how, closing his eyes and lashing out in two directions.

“Easy,” Ronon said, catching his arm.

Evan scrubbed the water off of his face, opened his eyes. “What the hell was that?”

Ronon tapped his radio. “Nealson, did you feel that?”

And Evan realized. It was a test. To see if they were still intruding on each other, even when surprised, even when exposed to extreme physical sensations. 

Half of the people in the gym - mostly Marines - were laughing, the other half were eyeing Ronon warily. It was Dr. Parrish who brought Evan a towel.

“Hey, Major. This might help.”

“Thanks.” Evan was soaked from the waist up. He accepted the towel gingerly, set it on one of the weight benches, and then peeled out of his wet shirt. He wrung it out as best as he could, then used the towel to dry himself off, then used it to mop up the mats.

A moment later, Nealson, also wet around the edges and looking disgruntled for it, appeared in the doorway. He was still scrubbing at his hair with a towel, and the black t-shirt he was wearing was too big for him.

“Well, Major, looks like we’re cleared for regular duty.”

“Looks like,” Evan said. He met Nealson’s gaze and knew nothing of what was behind it, and he was okay with that.

*

Evan was mildly offended that AR-3’s first mission back was a milk run, because he hadn’t been injured and his leadership skills hadn’t been compromised. He’d kept up with all of his training while he was stuck in the city, and he was in top mission condition, but a milk run it was, to a nice trading planet that Ronon recalled had been kind to him when he was still a Runner.

So through the gate he marched, his men arrayed on his six.

They followed the path from the clearing around the gate through the trees, just as Teyla had described. The trees were fascinating, because Evan had never seen leaves that shade of blue-lilac before, and he liked it. He wondered what color the leaves would fade to as they died. On the way back he’d take a picture and grab a sample, as long as it didn’t violate some kind of planetary taboo. He’d ask the locals.

Even though Evan had access to pretty much every AAR ever, the rest of his team filled him in on the adventures they’d had being seconded to other teams under Teldy’s direction, and their stories passed the time for the lengthy hike through the woods.

The trees gave way to a field where, in the distance, Evan could see a cluster of what looked like tents. Not farmers but hunter-gatherers then, a population that needed to be mobile to follow the herds.

If they were willing to teach some of the zoologists how to breed and care for some of their local livestock, well, it was the closest to fresh bacon Atlantis would have in three and a half years. Evan had only been without fresh bacon for two and a half years and he was excited for some. So many things to make with good bacon at hand - bacon-and-cheese-filled croissants, caramelized green beans with bacon and almonds, or just a big heap of bacon with breakfast.

The locals seemed friendly enough, wore clothe in the fashion range somewhere between Athosian casual and Runner-Ronon feral, all skins and leathers and furs, with some stone-age style tools and weapons. 

Three women and a man met them halfway across the grass field to the little camp, the women carrying the carcass of something large and vaguely boar-like on a spit, the man carrying a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and a stone-head axe.

“Greetings,” the first woman said.

All of them had tanned skin but pale hair and light eyes. The women wore their hair short, the man wore his long.

“Greetings,” Evan said. “We are travelers through the Ring of the Ancestors. We come seeking trade.”

“What do you wish to trade?”

“Well, we’re interested in a couple of your livestock, just a single breeding pair, and maybe some assistance about how best to feed and raise them. Not sure what you’d want in exchange. We have medicine and technology, some crops and livestock of our own up for trade.”

Weir was pretty insistent that Atlantis was not arms dealers.

The woman glanced at her companions. “How did you come to know of us?”

“A friend of ours mentioned you’d been friendly to him, when he was in a bad way,” Evan said. “He was a Runner many years ago, but no longer.”

Recognition dawned in the woman’s eyes. “The Satedan. Yes, he came here. His stay was very fruitful, and we remember him fondly. Any friends of his are friends of ours. Please, come. You are welcome in our village.”

All of the women were pretty - slender, fit from their active hunter lifestyle.

“Thank you,” Evan said. “I’m Major Lorne. This is Sergeant Reed, Sergeant Coughlin, and Lieutenant Billick.”

The first woman smiled. “I am Russa. These are my sisters, Salla and Minnay. This is our brother, Daneko.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Evan said.

Up close, the local camp was much bigger than it had initially appeared, hundreds of tents stretched out over a grassy plain, with centralized cooking fires and other work areas where children and adults alike were gathered, playing and working.

“Like the Mongol hordes of old,” Billick murmured.

Everyone at the SGC was an amateur anthropologist by now.

Daneko helped his sisters unload their kill at a nearby cooking fire, and then he peeled away, heading to join another group of young men. None of the siblings seemed much older than twenty-five, but Evan could see elderly people in the mix, some working, others being assisted by children and teenagers. They cared for their old and disabled, then. That was a good sign.

Russa led Evan and his men to a tent that was ornately furnished inside with beaded hangings, heavy fur rugs, and some kind of throne made of all kinds of spiky antlers that looked very uncomfortable to sit on, but an older woman in her mid-fifties was seated on it, regal as a queen. She resembled Russa and her sisters around the eyes and mouth. 

“Mother,” Russa said, “these men are traders from beyond the Ring. They knew The Satedan, who recommended us as friends. They wish to trade.”

“Welcome,” the woman said, smiling, and Evan and his teammates took a cue from Russa, seating themselves on the fur rug closest to the antler throne.

“Thank you,” Evan said.

Russa’s mother, Asinna, was the leader of their people. She remembered Ronon, who they all called The Satedan, and she was open to trade negotiations. A simple pair of livestock seemed a reasonable request, and she was willing to discuss what her people could benefit from in return, but of course there was a ceremony to establish trust.

As cheesy as it was, Evan was a fan of what he called The Jackson Method, which involved divvying up a chocolate bar. Hershey’s wasn’t his favorite, but it was easy to break into small, even pieces. That way everyone on his team plus whoever the locals chose could partake.

Salla and Minnay set to brewing tea, which was fairly common for treating ceremonies, both in Pegasus and on Earth. Asinna recounted the greatness of her people, the prowess of their hunters - mostly the women - and the cleverness and inventiveness of their men in devising weapons. Evan spoke of the people he came from, peaceful scientists and explorers, careful not to mention Atlantis or any Ancient tech, careful to downplay their numbers.

Once the tea was brewed, the ceremony began. Evan ate a piece of chocolate first to demonstrate it was safe, and his teammates did the same, and then Russa, as oldest daughter, had the honor of trying a piece first for her people. She chewed slowly, expression cautious, and then her face lit up, and she nodded to her mother, who had a piece, and then Salla and Minnay were allowed to have pieces as well.

Before tea could be served, there was a bit of a religious ceremony, it seemed. Asinna called for the priest, and an elderly, wizened man stepped into the tent with an ornately-carved wooden box clutched to his chest. He knelt before Asinna, bowed his head, presented the box to her.

As soon as she opened the lid, Evan felt it. The hum of Ancient tech, subtle but present, either something very simple or something very low on power.

Asinna reached into the box and drew out one of those personal shield emitters, the little green coffin-shaped things. She held it aloft, gazed at it reverently, and then she beckoned Evan and his team closer.

They scooted closer obediently, careful to keep their posture polite and obeisant. Asinna waved the device over them, like some kind of blessing or warding, and when it passed over Evan he felt the hum of Ancient tech spike for a second.

Perhaps Asinna thought the device was some kind of shield against evil or malicious intent, like magic, and not just physical harm, for once the waving ritual was completed, she set the shield emitter back in the box and dismissed the priest. Then she descended from her throne, knelt opposite Evan and his team, and she stirred each of the cups of tea herself, distributed them.

Evan thanked her and raised the cup to his lips when she did. He watched her throat work, so he drank deeply, set the cup down, licked his lips so as not to be impolite and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Welcome, treasured visitors,” Asinna said. “We are so pleased you are willing to treat with us, and for such a reasonable price. Your contributions to our people will be very valuable.”

“You’re welcome,” Evan said, only the words didn’t quite come out right, came out a little slurred. He frowned, but his head felt heavy, and the world around him was starting to feel slower, hazy around the edges.

And he realized.

They’d been drugged.

“Go,” he said.

Billick blinked blearily, confused, and Evan managed to shout,  _ “Go!” _

Reed lurched to his feet. Russa and Salla moved to stop him.

Evan drew his pistol and fired it straight at the roof of the tent.

Screams and shouts rose around him.

He squeezed the trigger as many times as he could, and he saw his teammates scramble out of the tent before his world went dark.

*

When Evan woke, he was cold and sore. His muscles were cramped like he’d slept in one position all night and been unable to move, like when he was on campouts with his cousins and sharing a too-crowded tent.

He blinked, but it was still dark.

Was he blind? Had the drug they’d given him blinded him?

Panic lanced through him. He sat up - or tried. His ankles and wrists were bound, his limbs stretched out and bound so tightly that he couldn’t even arch up to shift. He couldn’t feel anything on his face, hadn’t been blindfolded. HIs eyes didn’t hurt.

He just couldn’t see  _ anything. _

His heart started to race, his breath started coming faster, and he forced himself to take deep breaths, to calm down. He needed a clear head.

What could he hear?

Water dripping somewhere in the distance.

What could he smell? Dampness in the air. Earthiness. Dirt. Was he in a cave?

What could he feel? Cold. Stone. He was lying on stone.

He was  _ naked. _

There came that panic again, but - no.

Evan had been through SERE training. Getting his wings meant facing the reality that one day he might get shot down and fall into enemy hands. It had happened before, with the Genii. They’d taken his clothes then - but also given him a different set of clothes.

Here was the hard truth: there was no trick to withstanding torture. There were tricks to withstanding interrogation, depending on the interrogation techniques. Evan remembered what his trainer had told him about physical torture.

_ You will break. The only thing you might control is how you die. _

What was Evan supposed to do before he died?

_ Lie. Tell them something verifiable that doesn’t compromise the operation. If you can hold out for twenty-four hours, the battlefield will have changed enough that anything real you might tell them will be useless. _

There were twenty-eight hours in a day on Atlantis. Check-in time on a milk-run mission like this was supposed to have been four hours from departure. Evan didn’t know if his team had made it back to the gate, didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. Judging by the pounding in his skull and the weight in his limbs, he’d been drugged. All he had to do was hold out for four hours and then Atlantis would send SAR. Unless the natives lied and said Evan and his team hd been taken by Wraith.

But - no.

Evan had to call for help.

His best chance of that was - Nealson. Jonathan.

He had to center himself and clear his mind, take down all those shields he’d painstakingly built. Of course, he had no clue if their connection would hold across two planets.

Evan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another, then another, imagining Teyla’s voice washing over him.

Light blossomed behind his eyes, followed by soft footfalls.

Evan opened his eyes. He could see. He was in a cave. He was lying on some kind of stone slab in a low-ceilinged cave. Russa, her mother, her sisters, and a whole host of other women and teenage girls trooped into the cave, carrying torches. In short order he was surrounded by a human wall four people thick, and they were all staring at him, and he was very aware of how vulnerable he was. No armor, no weapons, no way to evade them at all. He was totally at their mercy.

Evan kept taking slow, deep breaths, four by four, inhale for four, exhale for four.

“You say you know The Satedan,” Asinna said, “but you lied, for he fulfilled the terms of our trade willingly, but you refused.”

“Ronon said you were nice,” Evan said. “That’s all. He didn’t mention the details of the trade, just said you were reasonable. If you let me go, we can sort things out peacefully -”

Asinna’s hand closed around his throat. She squeezed hard briefly, cutting off his air for a moment. His mind shifted toward panic, but she let go, her smile cruel.

“Your weapons killed three of our people. Your fellow men fled. You will pay for what you have done.”

Dammit. He’d killed locals. He’d started an incident. But he’d done his duty. His teammates had escaped. If these people killed him, his teammates were safe, and that was what mattered. It was his duty to resist by all means available, to make every effort to escape now that he’d aided his teammates in escaping.

“You’ll get nothing from me,” Evan said, as calmly as he could manage. It was his duty to protect his people, protect Atlantis. He could not say anything that was disloyal to them or lead to their harm.

Asinna placed her hand very deliberately on the inside of his thigh and said, “We will get  _ everything  _ from you.”

Four hours. Just four hours. All he had to do was hold out for four hours and Sheppard would send reinforcements for SAR. Maybe sooner, if his teammates had escaped. Maybe Marines from Atlantis were on their way right now.

Evan had learned a lot in SERE training. Interrogators relied on establishing a rhythm, and disrupting that was key. Dignity went out the window. Humanizing yourself was key.

Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

Russa gagged him. Salla blindfolded him.

He couldn’t move, but he could hear, heard Russa instructing Minnay to prepare him.

At first he thought they were trying to scare him, were going to torture him for fun, make him hurt for killing three of their people. But then the pain took on a strange edge, one that wasn’t pleasure but was - arousal.

And he realized that was deliberate. He tried to fight it, but he couldn’t. He had no idea what was coming. There were too many people, too many hands and mouths and fingers and knives. He couldn’t predict their rhythm. Couldn’t wriggle away, couldn’t dodge or evade. He was utterly helpless.  

Evan thought he knew his body inside and out. After his mind, his body was his most important weapon. But there were things he’d never known, had never wanted to know. His body could maintain arousal when he was in pain. His body could maintain arousal when he was terrified. His body could maintain arousal when he couldn’t breathe.

Whoever they were, they knew his body better than he did, manipulated him in ways he hadn’t even imagined, and then he felt someone climb on top of him.

Panting behind the gag, sobbing, tears streaming down his face, he shouted for Jonathan.

Dignity was out the window.

_ Jonathan! _

He screamed it over and over and over again.

The person atop him was moving, rocking, and bile rose in his throat.

_ Jonathan! _

And then he heard a reply.

_ Evan? _

Evan squeezed his eyes shut, and he saw - not Jonathan Nealson but Jack O’Neill, younger than Evan had ever known him but certainly older than the teenager he knew as Jonathan Nealson.

He and Evan were standing on opposite sides of an empty space. There were no walls or floors or ceilings, there was no color, but they were both standing on the same plane, staring at each other.

Then the man started toward him, concern etched across this features. “Evan, where are you?”

Sharp pain perforated their little world, and Evan was thrown back into his own body.

“He is flagging. Give him a little  _ encouragement.” _

Another stab of pain mingled with pleasure sparked across Evan’s nerves, and the body above him resumed moving.

Evan screamed again.  _ Jonathan! _

And then he was back in that colorless, formless world, that void with only Jonathan beside him.

Jonathan, who was the younger ghost of Jack O’Neill and something else.

Jonathan, who was gazing at him with concern and pain and understanding.

“Hey, kid,” he said, and the word  _ kid _ tripped neatly off his tongue, without condescension or belittlement, but then he shook his head. “Evan. I’m here. You’re not alone.”

In this world, Jonathan was wearing the familiar olive green house BDUs Evan had always worn with the SGC. He had an SG-1 patch on his right sleeve.

Evan was wearing his uniform, the gray and black familiar and comforting.

“Jonathan -”

“That’s right. That’s me. I’m here.” Jonathan stepped closer but not into Evan’s personal space, kept his hands by his sides, his movements slow and cautious.

“Help me.”

“Where are you?”

“Underground. Cave. No light.”

“Any other details?”

Evan told him what he knew of the camp’s location, layout, of the locals’ society, weapons technology. Of the three people he’d killed.

“Your men made it back here safe. Help is on its way.”

“Don’t leave me,” Evan begged.

“I won’t. I’m just telling Sheppard and the others what you told me.”

“Tell them to bring a medical team, all right? And some clothes for me. And don’t - don’t let the others see me.”

“I’m telling them everything you’re telling me.”

Pain lanced through the void again, and Evan was dragged back into his body.

“Stay with us,” Asinna snarled. She slapped Evan across the face twice. “You have not finished paying for what you took from us. You slew three of our kin, and we will be avenged an hundred fold if needs be. We will be avenged until you die.”

The harsh glow of the torches was a painful shock when the blindfold was yanked away. Then the gag was tugged aside, and one person pinched his nose while someone else forced his mouth open.

Evan tried to turn his head, but someone pulled on his ear, and then burning hot liquid was poured down his throat.

He spat up what he could, but that earned him another smack across the face and then a hand clamped over his mouth while someone else held his nose and yet someone else stroked his throat, trying to force him to swallow.

Whatever it was, it sparked more heat in his veins, made him lightheaded.

Someone screamed his name.

_ Evan! _

The locals didn’t know his first name.

Who was calling him?

_ Evan! _

And then he realized, and he stepped out of his body and into the void.

_ Jonathan. _

*

_ “There are no fish in this pond, are there?” Evan and Jonathan sat side-by-side on the end of the small wooden dock that stretched out into the lake behind the cabin. _

_ The cabin was in Minnesota, had belonged to Jack’s grandfather. _

_ Jonathan had use of it whenever he wanted, always made sure never to be there at the same time as Jack. The only time they communicated directly was when they were scheduling time up here. _

_ Jonathan was sitting low in his chair, a can of beer open on the cooler at his knee, hat tipped low over his eyes. _

_ “The point is the fishing, not the fish.” _

_ “How can there be fishing without fish?” _

_ “Let it go, Evan.” _

*

He had to let go, let go of the pain, let go of the fear, let go of his own body. What they were doing to him didn’t matter. He had to survive, had to stay alive. Atlantis was coming for him.

*

_ “I can ski and ice skate, but this seems like madness.” Jonathan and Evan stood on the golden sand several meters up from the water, watching the waves break on the beach. _

_ “If you can ski and ice skate, you can surf.” Evan was shirtless, wearing the awfully gaudy board shorts he’d worn when he was a teenager, which were an embarrassing eyesore given the artist he was, that he’d been raised by.  _

_ “I’ll admit that surfing isn’t quite as crazy as snowboarding, because then the board isn’t strapped to your feet, but - I don’t know about this.” Jonathan wore a sleek black wetsuit. He was lean like Sheppard, like other Special Ops guys Evan had known. _

_ “In snowboarding you steer with your front foot. Surfing is more like boating. Steer with your back foot. Think of this fin as a rudder.” _

_ “That actually makes sense.” _

_ “Now come on, you can do this. You can swim, you can surf.” _

_ “You just want to watch me fall.” _

_ “No, I want you to feel what I feel. It’s almost like flying.” _

*

He was falling. Falling. Falling. He was untethered, unmoored, tumbling down and away - from himself. From reality. From the press of flesh around him and above him. From the pain and the burning and the aching, from the wet and the slick and the bitterness stinging the back of his throat. He had to find his feet, climb out of this pit, jump off the edge, and fly. Out of his mind. Out of his body.

*

_ “And this is the secret to grilling steaks.” Jonathan and Evan stood on the side deck of Jack’s house, Jonathan manning the grill and Evan watching. _

_ “I’ll admit,” Evan said, hands in pockets, “that I hadn’t pegged you for the type who’d marinate in advance, but I am not surprised that you marinate with beer.” _

_ “What would you use?” _

_ “Beer is fine.” _

_ “You’re judging me.” _

_ “No, just -” _

_ “Not everyone can be a secondhand student of Le Cordon Bleu in gay old Pah-ree,” Jonathan said, flipping the steaks expertly. _

_ “I’m not saying everyone should.” _

_ “Grilling is a very manly skill.” _

_ “I was raised by women. I make a really mean chicken cordon bleu.” _

_ “Now you’re making fun of me.” _

_ “Not at all. I’ll cook for you next time.” _

_ Jonathan glanced at him, nudged him. “That’s the spirit. Next time.” _

*

It never stopped. It was endless. First the hands, then the poison, then the skin. There was always the flickering of firelight beyond the blindfold, the murmurs and whispers, the grunts and hisses, the moans and groans.

“Next,” Assina said. 

Next.

*

_ “I don’t think I can do this.” Jonathan eyed the blank canvas like it was an Afghani insurgent bristling with grenades and C-4. _

_ “Sure you can.” Evan’s easel was set up beside Jonathan’s. He was already doing a preliminary sketch. _

_ Jonathan glanced at him. “You have a distinctly unfair advantage - years of training and practice, and also those little steady hands.” _

_ Evan yanked his pencil away from the canvas lest he mar the burgeoning image. “Are you calling my hands small?” _

_ “If the burger commercial fits.” Jonathan turned to him more fully. Then he prowled closer, peered at Evan’s canvas. “That’s not what I look like.” _

_ “That’s what your face looks like.” _

_ “I’m more than my face.” Jonathan’s mouth twisted into a frown briefly, but then he shook his head. _

_ “We are all more than our bodies,” Evan said, “but we can’t live without them.” _

_ “There’s a way,” Jonathan said. _

*

_ The void around them flickered. _

_ They were in that curious yellow room, the one with the shifting gravity. _

_ The one with Daniel, who was not wearing his glasses but was wearing that soft-looking cream sweater, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, watching. _

_ “Don’t ask me to do that.” _

_ It was Evan who said, “I don’t want to see this cell again.” _

*

Russa asked, “How much more does he have in him?”

Assina said, “At least one more. Next!”

*

_ Evan was curled in the smallest ball he could manage, willing everything away from himself, his body, the pain, the sounds, the smells - everything. _

_ Jonathan knelt beside him, still carefully not touching him. “No, Evan. Don’t let go. Stay with me. Ignore them. Be with me.” _

_ Evan couldn’t move, couldn’t think. _

_ “Hold on. Help is on the way. We’re almost there.” _

_ Evan asked, “Where?” _

_ “Where you are.” _

_ “Where I am?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ “Am I?” _

_ “Are you what?” _

_ “Am I?” _

_ “What do you mean, are you?” _

_ “Am I?” _

_ “Dammit - yes, Evan. You are. You exist. You’re real. You’re alive.” _

_ “Am I?” _

*

“I think that is the last. Take the blindfold.”

“What?”

“Why waste perfectly good cloth?”

“Yes, Mother.”

The light behind his eyelids flickered, faded, died.

All was darkness.

Someone was screaming. Such a curious sound.

_ Evan! _

*

Evan opened his eyes.

Beckett, Sheppard, Heightmeyer, and Weir stood over him.

His team was hovering just behind them.

Where was Jonathan?

He was standing behind Evan’s team, hands clasped behind his back, posture respectful, expression carefully blank.

_ Jonathan? _

There was no response.

Evan closed his eyes, tried to step into the void they shared, but it wasn’t there. It was like he’d reached the top of a staircase and tried to take one step too many and stumbled - onto the flatness of the landing.

Evan opened his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Beckett asked.

Evan shifted his limbs experimentally. There was no pain. “Surprisingly okay.” He frowned. “How? Or was I - how long was I out?”

“Almost a day,” Beckett said. He glanced at Jonathan. “Lieutenant Nealson helped. With a Goa’uld healing device.”

Evan glanced at him, but his expression was still unreadable. “Thank you,” he said.

“Anything to help, sir.”

That  _ sir _ was all wrong. Jonathan should’ve been calling him  _ kid. _ But the Jonathan standing a little apart from Evan’s teammates wasn’t the Jonathan Evan knew, the one he’d been with.

_ Jonathan? _

Still no response.

Evan said, “Let down your shields.”

Weir and Sheppard and Evan’s teammates looked confused.

Jonathan frowned. “I haven’t raised them since - since you first called for me.”

“You haven’t been answering me.”

Jonathan swayed forward like he was going to step closer, checked himself. “Have you been calling for me? Just now?”

Evan nodded.

Jonathan looked at Beckett. “Maybe the bond is broken.”

“How?” Evan asked, feeling something in his chest begin to collapse, leaving a hollow behind it. 

“Well, lad,” Beckett said with terrible gentleness, “you were dead for a minute there.”

*

If Evan had thought being grounded on account of having developed a surprise telepathic bond with Jonathan was long and boring, being grounded on account of getting held captive offworld and dying was even worse. The thing about being part of Stargate Command was that people dying was - not that serious, in a way. The number of times Daniel Jackson had died and come back was basically a joke. Sheppard had died and been brought back in the very first few months of the Atlantis Expedition. In the grand scheme of things, Evan knew what he’d gone through wasn’t nearly as horrible as it could have been.

(Because he still had dreams about Ba’al and that yellow room and Daniel’s cream sweater. And he remembered that Iraqi prison. And a dozen other small horrors that had never actually belonged to him.)

He had a standing appointment with Heightmeyer once a week even though he really didn’t remember what had happened to him. Weir stopped him in the hallway all the time to ask how he was doing.

(Fine. He was fine. He’d suffered no permanent injury, didn’t even have any scars. He could go running and work out at the gym and spar with Ronon just like before.)

Sheppard never let him offworld except on milk runs, and even then he was given an extra team of Marines  _ just in case. _ Evan’s teammates were around him twenty-four seven. It took Evan a day and a half to figure out that they’d established a rotating watch so at least one of them was with him at all times. If anyone needed a regular appointment with Heightmeyer, it was them, because what happened wasn’t their fault. If they hadn’t escaped, they’d never have been able to summon help, and Evan would have died (permanently).

Evan didn’t remember what had happened to him, but he no longer sparred with Teyla, and no one was allowed to touch him. He hadn’t had to say a word, just one flinch or recoil too many, and he realized it at the same time as everyone else did. 

Don’t touch Major Lorne.

No more nudges, pats on the back or shoulder, playful headlocks or other male roughhousing.

No casual touches or pokes or handshakes.

Evan slept curled up in a teeny tiny ball, his limbs knees curled to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. His body was his. His limbs were his.

The first time Ronon caught him in a wrist lock during sparring Evan froze, panicked, went out of his head.

The second time, Evan almost dislocated his own wrist to get free so he could pummel Ronon down to the mats.

Ronon was so surprised Evan succeeded, and then Evan’s teammates rushed him to the infirmary, and Beckett fussed over his wrist, and Evan was up to two visits to Heightmeyer per week.

(Ronon had a quiet, stilted conversation with Evan. Asinna’s people had been kind to him. He hadn’t realized that what they’d offered would have been forced if it wasn’t accepted. Evan told him it wasn’t his fault; he couldn’t have known.)

He really was okay, though. He was. He didn’t spend forever in the shower scalding himself while he scrubbed beneath too-hot water. He was sleeping all right. He was doing his job very well. He could do normal social things like sit through movies with his team (though movies every night was getting old, and his teammates accepted his wanting to be alone and draw without distractions some nights). He was sleeping all right. He didn’t have PTSD. He’d looked through Heightmeyer’s copy of the DSM-IV, and he didn’t fit the criteria.

Even Sheppard had taken to hovering in his own way, which meant he was in the military command office at the same time as Evan sometimes, doing his own paperwork.

The one person who didn’t hover over him incessantly was Jonathan.

But he was around in the background, because Evan was sent to the labs on Gene duty more frequently (was that McKay’s way of hovering over him?). Even though Evan and Jonathan were no longer telepathically bonded, Evan was always aware of where Jonathan was, because - because Evan knew who he  _ was _ now.

Had figured it out while he was drawing, because he was drawing faces he didn’t know, faces he didn’t recognize, faces he could give names to: Kawalski, Michaels, Sara.

The little boy, Charlie.

And Daniel, wearing the cream sweater, leaning against the wall of that damned yellow room.

Daniel, who was Daniel Jackson without glasses.

Daniel, who Jack O’Neill had loved so much he’d hallucinated the man in his darkest hour.

Jack O’Neill, who was somehow little Lieutenant Jonathan Nealson.

“You’re really good at that.”

Evan looked up from his sketchpad. “Thanks.”

Jonathan was leaning in the doorway of the little common room AR-3 sometimes used for team night, hands in his pockets, watching him. “That was just how he looked, when I was in that cell. He didn’t have his glasses. Didn’t need them, I guess. Being all Ascended.”

“Not a hallucination, then.”

“Maybe. He lost all his memories after he de-Ascended. The only person who remembers what happened there is me.”

“And me,” Evan said quietly.

Jonathan straightened up. “The only person who knows what happened to you is you. But I - I understand. In ways not a lot of people could. In ways I wish fewer people could.”

“I don’t remember it. You healed me. I’m  _ fine.” _

“No,” Jonathan said in a low voice, too low for passers-by to hear. “You’re not.” Then he drew his hands out of his pockets and sat down beside Evan, carefully leaving space between them. “But you will be.”

Evan studied him for a long time. Then he nudged Jonathan’s knee with his. “Yeah, I will be.” He exhaled slowly. “I miss you, sometimes.”

Jonathan raised his eyebrows.

Evan tapped his temple. “Up here. I miss your singing.”

Jonathan sang softly,  _ “Deh vieni alla finestra, o mio tesoro…” _

Evan smiled. “Without all the sweeping background music it’s easier to understand.  _ Come to the window, my treasure? _ Really?”

“Don’t blame me, blame whoever wrote the libretto.” Jonathan eyed him. “You speak Italian?”

“Artist,” Evan said, and Jonathan nodded.

“True.” Then he said, “I miss you too. You doing okay, living in that box of paints?”

Evan tipped his head back to look at the swirling, gentle colors of the ceiling, the wall, the curved lines. For all that Atlantis was a city and a battleship, it was beautiful. One of the Ancients’ greatest achievements was the marriage of form and function. Function was beyond human imagining. Form was still the peak of beauty. Even the squid drones were lovely, in their own way.

Evan said, “It’s a pretty nice box of paints.” Then he glanced at Jonathan. “Do you want it back?”

“The connection?”

Evan nodded.

Jonathan thought for a long moment. Then he said, “No. It was useful. You get me. Get the things I can’t say, because - clearance.”

“It was useful for me too.” Then Evan said, “Think we’re still technically offworld married?”

Jonathan said, softly, “Till death do us part.”

“I have died.”

“Temporarily doesn’t count.”

Evan said, “You would know.”

“Yeah, I would.”

**Author's Note:**

> So much thanks to the inimitable Brumeier and SherlockianSyndromes for helping me get through this. I went way outside my comfort zone writing this. I know we joke about how much I write Poor Evan, but this was pretty cruel even for me, and it was hard to go there.
> 
> Title from the lyrics to Joni Mitchell' A Case Of You:
> 
> Oh I am a lonely painter  
> I live in a box of paints  
> I'm frightened by the devil  
> And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid  
> I remember that time that you told me, you said  
> "Love is touching souls"  
> Surely you touched mine 'cause  
> Part of you pours out of me  
> In these lines from time to time


End file.
